Image by moarplease via Flickrredgreenandblue.org
Each month the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) releases an update on the global prices for food in trade channels. The chart above is based on this data and it shows that we are continuing into a price spike much like the one in 2008. This does not tell you what food ...
Truthdig
Truthdigger of the Week: Glenn Greenwald
A person is guilty if he “gives intelligence to or communicates or corresponds with or holds any intercourse with the enemy, either directly or indirectly” (emphasis added), and, if convicted, “shall suffer death or such other punishment as a court-martial or military commission may direct.”
Greenwald takes issue with the Army’s possible interpretation of what exactly constitutes “the enemy” in this scenario, noting that WikiLeaks could be directly or indirectly implicated; either way, this case could turn out to be very bad news for whistle-blowers—not to mention the American media—down the line:
That would mean that it is a capital offense not only to furnish intelligence specifically and intentionally to actual enemies—the way that, say, Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen were convicted of passing intelligence to the Soviet Union—but also to act as a whistle-blower by leaking classified information to a newspaper with the intent that it be published to the world. Logically, if one can “aid the enemy” even by leaking to WikiLeaks, then one can also be guilty of this crime by leaking to The New York Times.
This Time We’re Taking the Whole Planet With Us
Globalization is the modern articulation of the ancient ideology used by past elites to turn citizens into serfs and the natural world into a wasteland for profit. Nothing to these elites is sacred. Human beings and the natural world are exploited until exhaustion or collapse. The elites make no pretense of defending the common good. It is, in short, the defeat of rational thought and the death of humanism. The march toward self-annihilation has already obliterated 90 percent of the large fish in the oceans and wiped out half of the mature tropical forests, the lungs of the planet. At this rate by 2030 only 10 percent of the Earth’s tropical forests will remain. Contaminated water kills 25,000 people every day around the globe, and each year some 20 million children are impaired by malnourishment. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere now are at 329 parts per million and climbing, with most climate scientists warning that the level must remain below 350 ppm to sustain life as we know it. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that the measurement could reach 541 to 970 ppm by 2100. At that point huge parts of the planet, beset with overpopulation, droughts, soil erosion, freak storms, massive crop failures and rising sea levels, will be unfit for human existence.Jared Diamond in his essay “The Last Americans” notes that by the time Hernan Cortés reached the Yucatán, millions of Mayan subjects had vanished.
American Empire
CHIMAERA - a grotesque product of the imagination.
Biogenetic assault on Life
Organic food is the fastest growing segment in u.s. agriculture. In all probability it will be virtually impossible to obtain any real organic food in the not too distant future.
Monsanto, giant in agricultural biogenetics and holder of patents on several genetically modified organisms (GMOs), is working to corner the global market on Life. Their genetically modified (GM) crops, some complete with suicide genes which render their seeds infertile and others genetically resistant to herbicides, are intended to ultimately overrun all natural crops making Monsanto quite literally the sole owner of all food crops on Earth.
These GM crops will ultimately be the only game in town and, therefore, every vegetable, fruit or grain you eat will be a genetically modified organism (GMO). The same will apply to every form of feed used for livestock, poultry and any creature whatsoever that is raised as a source of food for humans. It's even quite certain that food animals themselves will be subjected to the same sort of genetic manipulation that is now being used on crops.http://www.grist.org/article/and3/
Once these GM crops are growing in the open, anywhere in the world, they will inevitably contaminate all non-GM crops. The wind and every creature that enables pollination will carry GM pollen everywhere. Such cross-contamination is inevitable and already occurring. As deregulation allows more GM crops to be grown, the process will escalate at an ever increasing pace.
Hybrids will ultimately result from this process. Nature will intervene regardless of the worst efforts of self-appointed, corporate masters of the universe. Mutations will occur which will result in entirely new sub-species, or perhaps even species, of herbicide resistant plants. It would in fact seem that this scenario is already being played out. Search "GM superweeds". There are now weeds, at least ten species in twenty-two states, that are resistant to the herbicide that quite literally brought about their existence.The Globalization of Militarism
HAMSAYEH.NET - IRAN AND INTERNATIONAL NEWS
By creating fear and instability and embarking on unilateral military adventures, corporate militarism of the United States also fosters militarism elsewhere.
The Biggest Parasite
By ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH
"Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other."
James Madison
"The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today—my own government."
Martin Luther King Jr.
Many Americans still believe that US foreign policies are designed to maintain peace, to safeguard human rights and to spread democracy around the world. Regardless of their officially stated objectives, however, those policies often lead to opposite outcomes: war, militarism and dictatorship. Evidence of the fact that US policy makers no longer uphold the ideals they state publicly is overwhelming.
Those who continue to harbor illusions about the thrust of US policies around the world must be oblivious to the fact that the United States has been overtaken by a military-industrial-security-financial cabal whose representatives are firmly ensconced in both the White House and the US Congress. The ultimate goal of the cabal, according to their own military guidelines, is “full spectrum dominance” of the world; and they are willing to wage as many wars, to destroy as many countries and to kill as many people as necessary to achieve that goal.
READ THE REST By creating fear and instability and embarking on unilateral military adventures, corporate militarism of the United States also fosters militarism elsewhere.
The Biggest Parasite
By ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH
"Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other."
James Madison
"The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today—my own government."
Martin Luther King Jr.
Many Americans still believe that US foreign policies are designed to maintain peace, to safeguard human rights and to spread democracy around the world. Regardless of their officially stated objectives, however, those policies often lead to opposite outcomes: war, militarism and dictatorship. Evidence of the fact that US policy makers no longer uphold the ideals they state publicly is overwhelming.
Those who continue to harbor illusions about the thrust of US policies around the world must be oblivious to the fact that the United States has been overtaken by a military-industrial-security-financial cabal whose representatives are firmly ensconced in both the White House and the US Congress. The ultimate goal of the cabal, according to their own military guidelines, is “full spectrum dominance” of the world; and they are willing to wage as many wars, to destroy as many countries and to kill as many people as necessary to achieve that goal.
readersupportednews.org
According to Guardian sources, a suspected British intelligence and special forces unit, which parachuted in about four days ago, was caught near the town of Khandra, about 20 miles west of Benghazi.
Dependence on televisions, cellphones and laptops may be costing Americans dearly -- in lack of sleep.
Oil Spill Crisis Map
Fighting an Infestation
“The quagga mussels are a big problem, they have begun to damage the ecosystem of the lake and are rapidly expanding to other aquatic systems in Arizona, Utah and Southern California,” Acharya said. “You can see the beaches and Lake bottom covered with the mussels.”Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the United States and one of the most important water resources in the West. In January of 2007, Quagga mussels (Dreissena bugensis) were discovered in Lake Mead, for the first time in the west. This invasive species and the related Zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) have disrupted ecosystems in a number of waterways elsewhere in the U.S. and have cost billions of dollars in control efforts.
EPA to Limit Toxic Pollution from Industrial Boilers
Last week the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued regulations ten years in the making to cut arsenic, lead, acid gasses, mercury and other pollutants from industrial boilers.
“Corporate polluters are literally making us sick, and these long overdue protections from EPA will save lives and improve the health of millions of Americans,” said Michael Brune, Executive Director of the Sierra Club in a press release. “Though the announcement today is modest by comparison to the proposals put forth by the EPA last June, we urge Administrator Lisa Jackson to forge ahead to protect our children and families’ health.”
The proposed final Boiler MACT, Maximum Available Control Technology rule, is noticeably different than the draft rule Care2 readers were invited to weigh in and support the rule last summer. EPA wrote in a series of exemptions for small, very rural, and supposedly clean-fuel-burning boilers that reduce the estimated cost of compliance on industry by $1.8 billion according to EPA. In spite of the changes, environmental organizations that helped drive the process are supporting the agency.
Welcome to Canada, Randy Quaid
There’s a big gap down there between official reality and the real thing, and that a lot of people have a stake in making sure that gap isn’t closed. (We have similar gaps up here, but ours don’t matter nearly so much.) For all that we are much more deferential to authority in Canada, we are also less propagandized (at least for now)
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